(11) Refutation of Charges. In the refuta tion of the charge that he cast out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, he simply argues with the Pharisees upon their own prin ciples, and 'judges them out of their own mouth,' without assuming the truth of those principles.
(12) Popular Creed of the Jews. The facts he seems to assert respecting the wandering of demons through dry places (Matt. xii :43) were already admitted in the popular creed of the Jews. They believed that demons wandered in desolate places (Baruch iv :35). Upon these ideas he founds a parable or similitude, without involving an opinion of their accuracy, to describe 'the end of this generation.' The observations respecting prayer and fasting seem to have relation to that faith in God which he exhorts his apostles to ob tain. Prayer and fasting would serve to enable them to perceive the Divine suggestion which ac companied every miracle, and which the apostles had not perceived upon this occasion, though given them, because their animal nature had not been sufficiently subdued.
(13) Loosing Daughter of Abraham. The application of the term Satan to the case of the woman who had a spirit of infirmity is plainly an argumentum ad hominem. It is intended to heighten the antithesis between the loosing of an ox from his stall and loosing the daughter of Abraham, whom Satan, as they believed, had bound eighteen years.
(14) Cure of Diseases. The objection taken from the supposed consequence of explaining the casting out of demons to signify no more than the cure of diseases, that it tends to lower the dignity of the Saviour's miracles, depends upon the reader's complexion of mind, his prior knowl edge of the relative dignity of miracles, and some other things, perhaps, of which we are not com petent judges.
(15) Theory Opposed to Express Doctrines. The theory of demoniacal possessions is opposed to the known and express doctrines of Christ and his Apostles. They teach us that the spirits of the dead enter a state corresponding to their char acter, no more to return to this world (Luke xvi :22, etc.; xxiii :43; 2 Cor. v :1; Phil. i :21).
With regard to the fallen angels, the representa tions of their confinement are totally opposed to the notion of their wandering about the world and tormenting its inhabitants (2 Peter ii :4; Jude, verse 6). If it be said that Jesus did not correct the popular opinion, still he nowhere denies that the phenomena in question arose from diseases only. He took no side; it was not his province. It was not necessary to attack the misconception in a formal manner ; it would be supplanted when ever his doctrine respecting the state of the dead was embraced. To have done so would have engaged our Lord in prolix arguments with a people in whom the notion was so deeply rooted, and have led him away too much from the pur poses of his ministry. 'It was one of the many things he had to say, but they could not then bear them.' It is finally urged that the antide moniacal theory does not detract from the Divine authority of the Saviour, the reality of his mir acles, or the integrity of the historians. Sub ju dice lis est (Jahn's Biblisches Arclia'ologie, Up ham's transl.; Winer's Biblisches Real-woerter buch, art. 'Besessene ;' Moses Stuart's Sketches of Angelology in Bibliotheca Sacra, London and New York, i843; Roberts' Oriental Illustrations of Scripture; Morrison, On Matthew, pp. 157 '68; Sam. Hopkins' Demoniacal Possessions of the New Testament, in Am. Presb. and Theol. Rev., October, 1865). J. F. D.
DEN (den), (Heb. other Hebrew words), Is. xxxii:14; Jer. a cave; Is, xi:8, a hole; Ps. civ :22, a covert; Ps. x :9; Jer. ix:1 ; x:22, a lair; Heb. xi:38; Rev. vi:15; Matt. xxi:i3; Mark xi:17, a recess for hiding. In Dan. vi. den of lions is mentioned as a means of execution. This has been confirmed by discoveries at Baby lon. (See Porter, Travels in Persia, i